High School Achievement in Maine: Where You Come From Matters More Than School Size and Expenditures

Fern Desjardins and Gordon Donaldson report on their research examining the relationship between academic achievement in Maine’s public high schools and school size, per-pupil operating costs, and socioeconomic status. Using aggregated Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) scores, their study confirmed previous research that socioeconomic status (using both family and community measures) is the most important factor associated with achievement, while school size is not a critical factor. Additionally, the authors found that per-pupil operating costs are higher in the state’s largest and smallest high schools. The authors suggest that the creation of larger districts and larger schools, as supported by recent state policies, will not necessarily mitigate inequities in student achievement resulting from family and community socioeconomic status, and may not yield the desired cost savings

Female genomic response to mate information

Females should be choosier than males about prospective mates because of the high costs of inappropriate mating decisions. Both theoretical and empirical studies have identified factors likely to influence female mate choices. However, male–male social interactions also can affect mating decisions, because information about a potential mate can trigger changes in female reproductive physiology. We asked how social information about a preferred male influenced neural activity in females, using immediate early gene (IEG) expression as a proxy for brain activity. A gravid female cichlid fish (Astatotilapia burtoni) chose between two socially equivalent males and then saw fights between these two males in which her preferred male either won or lost. We measured IEG expression levels in several brain nuclei including those in the vertebrate social behavior network (SBN), a collection of brain nuclei known to be important in social behavior. When the female saw her preferred male win a fight, SBN nuclei associated with reproduction were activated, but when she saw her preferred male lose a fight, the lateral septum, a nucleus associated with anxiety, was activated instead. Thus social information alone, independent of actual social interactions, activates specific brain regions that differ significantly depending on what the female sees. In female brains, reproductive centers are activated when she chooses a winner, and anxiety-like response centers are activated when she chooses a loser. These experiments assessing the role of mate-choice information on the brain using a paradigm of successive presentations of mate information suggest ways to understand the consequences of social information on animals using IEG expression

A randomised, blinded, trial of clopidogrel versus aspirin in patients at risk of ischaemic events (CAPRIE). CAPRIE Steering Committee

Many clinical trials have evaluated the benefit of long-term use of antiplatelet drugs in reducing the risk of clinical thrombotic events. Aspirin and ticlopidine have been shown to be effective, but both have potentially serious adverse effects. Clopidogrel, a new thienopyridine derivative similar to ticlopidine, is an inhibitor of platelet aggregation induced by adenosine diphosphate. METHODS: CAPRIE was a randomised, blinded, international trial designed to assess the relative efficacy of clopidogrel (75 mg once daily) and aspirin (325 mg once daily) in reducing the risk of a composite outcome cluster of ischaemic stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death; their relative safety was also assessed. The population studied comprised subgroups of patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease manifested as either recent ischaemic stroke, recent myocardial infarction, or symptomatic peripheral arterial disease. Patients were followed for 1 to 3 years. FINDINGS: 19,185 patients, with more than 6300 in each of the clinical subgroups, were recruited over 3 years, with a mean follow-up of 1.91 years. There were 1960 first events included in the outcome cluster on which an intention-to-treat analysis showed that patients treated with clopidogrel had an annual 5.32% risk of ischaemic stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death compared with 5.83% with aspirin. These rates reflect a statistically significant (p = 0.043) relative-risk reduction of 8.7% in favour of clopidogrel (95% Cl 0.3-16.5). Corresponding on-treatment analysis yielded a relative-risk reduction of 9.4%. There were no major differences in terms of safety. Reported adverse experiences in the clopidogrel and aspirin groups judged to be severe included rash (0.26% vs 0.10%), diarrhoea (0.23% vs 0.11%), upper gastrointestinal discomfort (0.97% vs 1.22%), intracranial haemorrhage (0.33% vs 0.47%), and gastrointestinal haemorrhage (0.52% vs 0.72%), respectively. There were ten (0.10%) patients in the clopidogrel group with significant reductions in neutrophils (< 1.2 x 10(9)/L) and 16 (0.17%) in the aspirin group. INTERPRETATION: Long-term administration of clopidogrel to patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease is more effective than aspirin in reducing the combined risk of ischaemic stroke, myocardial infarction, or vascular death. The overall safety profile of clopidogrel is at least as good as that of medium-dose aspirin